Please find below excerpts from Larry Kramer's review of Philadelphia,
which appeared in the Washington Post on Sunday. I could not post all
of it due to copyright restrictions.
I must say that I agree with Kramer entirely. Philadelphia is a contrived,
phony film.
Boyd Holmes
=======================================================================
Philadelphia" is a heartbreakingly mediocre movie: dishonest, and often
legally, medically and politically inaccurate. It saddens me to say that
I'd rather people simply not see it at all.
For 12 years, millions of people-gays, people with AIDS, those with HIV
infection, their families and friends-have been desperately waiting for a
"major" movie to deal with this plague in a mature fashion. Other
tragedies-the Holocaust, the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam-have had their
films. Why not AIDS? Oh, we knew why not: because AIDS is destroying
certain communities others would just as soon see die. There's no audience
for this kind of subject, we've been told over and over. So for the 12
years of this plague, Hollywood has turned its back.
But finally a company called TriStar, which is a division of Columbia
Pictures, which is a division of Sony Entertainment, which is a division of
Japan, where there are very few AIDS cases, has given us "Philadelphia,"
which opens in Washington on Friday. And TriStar-along with, it seems,
everyone else in Hollywood-has let us all know that if "Philadelphia" isn't
a success at the box office, there just might not be any other films about
AIDS. In other words, like Clinton's "Don't ask, don't tell"
gays-in-the-military policy, we should go to this movie but not tell anyone
how awful it is. We're supposed to be grateful it's been made; we're
supposed to bamboozle everyone into seeing it because it's good for them.
But "Philadelphia" doesn't have anything to do with the AIDS I know, or
the gay world I know. It doesn't bear any truthful resemblance to the life,
world and universe I live in, and every person I know lives in-or that the
film's director, Jonathan Demme, and its screenwriter, Ron Nyswaner, live
in either. To believe that seeing it would make any viewer-particularly
those I would like to have experienced something meaningful watching this
movie-change his or her point of view is like thinking Jesse Helms or
George Bush or Ronald Reagan would turn into a human being after watching
an episode of "Another World."
"Philadelphia" is put together like a paint-by-numbers kit. Take one
noble gay white male hero (Tom Hanks). Put him together with one black
shyster lawyer who hates gays (Denzel Washington). Pepper their conflict
with the (most improbable) notion that the shyster is the only lawyer in
the entire city of Philadelphia who will defend the white man, who's been
fired from his big-deal law firm because he has AIDS. Make the head honchos
in the white law firm (senior partner: Jason Robards) so monstrous and
homophobic you wonder how they've stayed in business so long. Have a
despicable white woman (Mary Steenburgen) and another black lawyer defend
the law firm at the trial. By trial's end make certain the black shyster
has experienced a change of heart so he can deliver a heart-rending sermon
on discrimination to the jury and the white woman can mutter, "I hate this
case." And our hero, who's just collapsed on the floor, can win $30 million
on his deathbed.
The very premise of the plot is unlikely. The film appears to be set in
the present, but since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act,
it's now so patently illegal to fire a person with AIDS that the notion of
a first-class Main Line law firm's firing this guy today is cockeyed. The
Act explicitly makes such a dismissal against the law. Today, it's cheaper
to pay the guy his salary and tell him not to come into the office. Who was
the legal adviser on this movie?
There's another credibility problem: Denzel Washington never really lets
us believe he's as slimy as the script is telling us he is. And for a
shyster, he sure looks good, dressed as he is in Armani or Cerutti or one
of those designers who end in a vowel. His character does so many
flip-flops I wondered if the filmmakers shot two versions, just in case,
and intercut them. In one scene he's railing against faggots and in the
next he's defending them and then he's slugging a gay black athlete who
tries to pick him up and then he's waffling about the case to his wife ...
Very schizy.
If I were a bigot, I'd walk away from this movie unchanged....
Hanks wears a wedding ring, and in fact he might as well be married to a
woman for all you see of his lover, their life together as a couple, their
interactions, their affection. Some actor I didn't recognize from scene to
scene but who had dark hair and spoke with a Hispanic accent hovers around
Tom now and then, and Tom winks at him now and then in the courtroom, but
for all the script tells you, either they could be trying to pick each
other up or the guy is a volunteer from some Philadelphia AIDS organization
who helps Tom get around. No, I take that back. The dark-haired guy
couldn't work for an AIDS organization. He doesn't know anything about
AIDS. He talks about a colonoscopy as if it were brain surgery. Who was the
medical adviser on this movie?
No one else does any acting either. They grimace. They look sad. They
look embarrassed. They look the other way. And almost every grimace, smile
and grunt is underlined with throbs and crescendos. You don't have to
supply any feelings. The music does it for you. I haven't heard a musical
score like this since Bette Davis went blind in "Dark Victory."
Two "big" scenes are meant to convey that we're in the company of
"different" people. The first shows Tom listening to Maria Callas sing an
obscure aria about the French Revolution from "Andrea Chenier" that even I
never heard of. Of all the music I'd believe Tom's character might listen
to, Maria's aria about the French Revolution is not one of them. The Pet
Shop Boys, maybe. To see this character, who's been totally undeveloped by
the screenwriter, and who has as much personality as a piece of wood,
suddenly-in front of Denzel-put Maria on and, in swooping close-ups a` la
Fellini, swirl and swoon around a dim room (his apartment? loft? studio?
house?; as I say, it's dim) like some loony, his eyes rolling in
ecstasy-this is not acting, it's embarrassing. Even I'd be afraid of
someone who-out of the blue-behaved like this.
The other scene is a gay party-which I guess is obligatory in a movie
about gay people-at which Quentin Crisp can be briefly glimpsed. What
Quentin Crisp, perhaps one of the most outrageous homosexuals in the world,
is doing at this party and with these people is a question I'll bet even he
can't answer. There are the requisite guys in drag (that wonderful makeup
person again) and a brief shot of one of our greatest AIDS activist heroes,
Michael Callen (who died the day I saw this movie) performing, for some
reason, "Mr. Sandman" (they must have known that long boring trial scene
lay just ahead). Tom and his ... boyfriend? buddy? alter ego? doppelganger?
warden? (oh. I remember: Tom refers to him somewhere as "my companion") are
dressed like naval officers and Tom dances with "my companion" as if it
were his mother. (Tom leads. Tell that to your gay Hispanic friends.)
Which brings me to his mother. And his family. His siblings. And their
mates. And their children. And their cousins and their aunts. No family
like this exists in the entire world. Every single one of them is
supportive, loving, proud of Tom, just thrilled he's gay, accepting of "my
companion," rooting for Tom every second at the trial, attending Tom
constantly in the hospital (which one did the art director have in mind
that fits 30 family members in semiprivate?), and not one of them has a
spot or wrinkle or blemish on either face or body or clothes. This family
is clean. (This movie is clean. Even the table in the jury room looks like
a Pledge commercial.)
The movie's one most awful line and moment comes after Tom tells these
assembled relations, all gathered 'round a hearth in a house out of
Colonial Home, that he's going to sue his firm, and has warned them awful
things might come out about his private life (he went once, horror To make
a movie in which two "lovers" never kiss, or touch each other, or show any
affection, or even talk to each other, is a lie. And Middle America knows
it. of horrors, to the baths and a gay porn movie theater), and surprise,
surprise, they are all with him one hundred percent. "Gosh, I love you
guys," Tom gushes. As Dorothy Parker once wrote, "Constant Reader thwowed
up."
Who's going to see a movie like this? Why would anyone want to? ....
I'm tired of hearing the old chestnut that the reason Hollywood doesn't
finance movies about gays and AIDS is that they won't make money.
("Philadelphia" will not make money.) I scream back: If you make a good and
honest movie, people will come to it, and there's never been a good and
honest movie financed by a major studio with gay or lesbian leading
characters, in which we're dealt with dramatically just as heterosexuals
are-i.e., openly and without condescension. To make a movie in which two
"lovers" never kiss, or touch each other, or show any affection, or even
talk to each other, is a lie. And Middle America knows it. Middle America
knows it's being lied to and cheated, if for no other reason than if
there's all this AIDS around, the fellows must have done something.
I fervently believe that the first decent movie in which a male star
like Tom Hanks makes love, in a bed, naked, with another male star, like
Tom Cruise-who is in the same bed, and in the same shot, and also naked,
and they kiss, and they embrace, and they talk to each other in an adult
fashion, and they are photographed doing the same things that straight
lovers are photographed doing in countless movies, TV shows and
commercials-will make a fortune.
Which brings me to this movie's biggest lie. There is not one
HIV-positive person in the entire world who does not believe that he or she
is the victim of-if not outright intentional genocide (which is what I
believe)-then at least government inaction and oversight of huge
proportions. Not one. There is not one of us who is not forced to face the
fact every second of every day that Ronald Reagan and George Bush and now
Bill Clinton have done I waited 12 years for this? This movie does not
deserve, on any grounds, to be supported; it deserves to lose its shirt.
little of consequence to save our lives. It is criminal that there is not
one reference in this entire movie to this reality. And what makes it even
more criminal is that it's undoubtedly intentional.
....
I waited 12 years for this? This movie does not deserve, on any grounds,
to be supported; it deserves to lose its shirt. I don't want Middle America
to see it. Anyone who wants to see what AIDS is really like, and what gay
life is really like, and how audiences are reacting to it, should see the
seven hours of theater known as "Angels in America," which is on Broadway,
is selling out every performance, and doesn't give a damn what Middle
America thinks, which is why at each of the three performances I've
attended I was surrounded by people-straight people!-from Middle America.
As I write these thoughts I realize just how angry this film has made
me. To watch Demme and Nyswaner on a recent "Nightline" trying to maintain
that, well, gee, this isn't really a movie about AIDS (and yeah, we wanted
to make a movie Middle America would see) is enough to make anyone lose
faith in the artist as the teller of truth. Why did they make it, then? I
bring up the painful reminder that Demme also directed "The Silence of the
Lambs," which many gays consider one of the most virulently and insidiously
homophobic films ever made. Would that he'd worried about us as much then
as he now worries about Middle America. Is "Philadelphia" some sort of
attempt to offer an apology? After these two films, I wish he'd just go
away and leave us alone. He's about as good for our cause as Ronald Reagan,
George Bush and now, Bill Clinton.
In the end, though, my main rage isn't against Demme and Nyswaner.
They're only small potatoes who've missed a boat that could have carried
some valuable cargo. My unabated and unabating fury rages against the third
silent, useless president in a row who refuses to take a leadership
position in ending this plague. Thus allowing everyone else's complicities
in a monstrous coverup that not only allows one crappy major-studio AIDS
movie to be made in 12 years by a bunch of lunkheads for whom it's more
important, as TriStar puts it, to "play in the malls" than to tell the
truth-but by the same token allows an entire world to look the other way.